109 replies to this topic

[Skylarr]

If they impliment Battalion vs Battalion I would Pilot one. I loved Arty pieces in WoTs.

[Groovus]

With that many crit slots dedicated to the long tom, that thing wouldn't last at all. Not to mention you'd be fused into one big block. What arms? What torsos? One big blob with a barrel and legs!

No reason to move so fast when you are a just single gun with a driver.

Fun concept but overall a failure waiting to happen.

[Carlton1228]

you would still have that oh s*** moment when you shoot it direct fire and miss......

[Skylarr]

Carlton1228, on 28 July 2012 - 11:51 AM, said:

you would still have that oh s*** moment when you shoot it direct fire and miss......

OMG Just a had a flash back to several of my WoTs fights.

[Mason Storm]

You have Triple Strength Myomer on something that can not overheat and utilize it. You dissipate 20 heat per turn yet with 4 Medium Lasers as your primary source of heat you are always cool.

[EDMW CSN]

Doubt you can mount a LT artillery on a mech, waaay too much crits needed, and you can't spread a weapon to 3 locations. Still a nice effort though.

[Skylarr]

EDMW CSN, on 28 July 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

Doubt you can mount a LT artillery on a mech, waaay too much crits needed, and you can't spread a weapon to 3 locations. Still a nice effort though.

I would guess that a Light Artillery piece would be Artillery Cannon, or Arrow IV.

Artillery Cannons are variations of standard artillery pieces. These smaller, snub-nosed versions of Long Toms, Snipers and Thumpers provide for area-effect fire at the expense of their typical firing range. Development of Artillery Cannons was begun independently by the Lyran Commonwealth in 3000 and Clan Wolf in 3030, with production starting in 3012 and 3032 respectively. Despite this, full-scale production has not yet commenced, making them a rare sight on the battlefield. To date the Long Tom Cannon, Sniper Cannon, and Thumper Cannon have only been seen on a few prototype units.

Game Rules

Artillery cannons follow the rules for indirect LRM fire to attack, but still resolve damage as standard artillery and scatter distance is divided by half. While able to use the same ammunition as full-scale artillery, they cannot benefit from a Targeting Computer.

[CCC Dober]

Actually I could mount two Long Toms using HMP LVL 3 rules no less. Those might not be exactly tourney legal, but who's counting beans anyway? It works regardless and that's that. Need proof?

[EDMW CSN]

Meh otherwise you just make do with the Helepolis. Granted it is as slow as most assaults, but with a Large Laser, LRM-10, SRM-6 and Med laser as backup, it can strike at all ranges. It uses the smaller Sniper artillery piece but I doubt that is the goal of the thread starter.

[Ryokochan]

Mason Storm, on 28 July 2012 - 11:56 AM, said:

You have Triple Strength Myomer on something that can not overheat and utilize it. You dissipate 20 heat per turn yet with 4 Medium Lasers as your primary source of heat you are always cool.

The Long Tom itself generates 20 heat( http://www.sarna.net...Artillery_Piece ) so all you have to do is fire it and a pair of medium lasers and your TSM is active.
Not sure if its legal to spread the crits over that many locations as I haven't seen the TT rules since the mid 90's though.
In light of the 6 ton diffirence between a 380 XL (20.5) and a 400 XL (26.5) i would have built this as a Banshee varient myself.

[Skylarr]

While the Mech might have been legal using past rules, I do not think it is legal now.

[Klessdine]

Bishop Steiner, on 27 July 2012 - 08:04 PM, said:

sure... if you got a mech that can hit it at 30 kilometers away?

Didn't think so.

If your arty is 30 km away why would you need them to be mounted on a mech instead of towed by a truck? Awesome looking mech. Totally unnecessary.

[Skylarr]

Ryokochan, on 28 July 2012 - 12:34 PM, said:

The Long Tom itself generates 20 heat( http://www.sarna.net...Artillery_Piece ) so all you have to do is fire it and a pair of medium lasers and your TSM is active.

Yes it does generate allot of heat when firing the Arty, but, this Mech would be placed Kilometers behind friendly lines. So why would it need TSMs.

It should have MGs or Flamers. A future variant should have Anti-Infantry Pods.

Edited by Skylarr, 28 July 2012 - 12:38 PM.

[CCC Dober]

@Ryo
It is perfectly legal to spread weapon crits as seen in Mechs such as the Clan Naga mounting dual Arrow IVs or the Catapult Variants C3 and C5. Just a few examples. Perfectly legal as you see.

[Strum Wealh]

Bishop Steiner, on 28 July 2012 - 10:08 AM, said:

Actually, as far as the Rules Compendium goes, there is nothing stating a Long Tom cannot be mounted in a Mech. In fact, the rules do provide for multi-section crit placement of larger ballistics. I may have taken this a bit to the extreme, but I actually used this design (in the 1S guise) at tournaments in the early and mid 90s.

As for the Rolling Thunder, that is simply the make and manufacturer of that particular long tom artillery piece.

Incidentally, I was thinking the same thing and went through both TechManual and Tactical Operations to see if that was even possible.

TechManual only explicitly lists the AC-20 (14 tons, 10 criticals), LB 20-X AC (14 tons, 11 criticals), Ultra AC-20 (15 tons, 10 criticals), and the Heavy Gauss Rifle (18 tons, 11 criticals) in stating, on page 57, that "the weapons that may be mounted in multiple locations... must be placed in adjacent body locations, and automatically receive the most restrictive firing arc".

It should be noted that the standard Gauss Rifle (15 tons, 7 criticals) and the various Hyper-Assault Gauss weapons (the largest of which, the HAG-40, consumes 16 tons and 10 criticals) are not included among the list of explicitly "splittable" weapons, despite being in the same weight range and not too far off in terms of volume (criticals).

However, the old Classic BattleTech Master Rules describes artillery weapons (on page 131) with "generally mounted only in vehicles, but sometimes in BattleMechs, these extremely large projectile weapons enable players to launch shells at targets several kilometers away", which would seem to indicate that it was possible, albeit exceedingly rare, to see such weapons mounted on BattleMechs.

However, even the 'Mech that carries an arty piece (the Helepolis, mounting the Sniper Artillery Piece split between the right arm and the right torso) mounts a lighter and less-bulky weapon than the Long Tom Artillery Piece.

So... is it, in fact, legal to split a weapon over more than two sections (even if all sections are adjacent), including through the center torso?
For example, why not split an AC-20 as four criticals in each side-torso and two in the Center-Torso, or split a Long Tom Artillery Piece as fourteen criticals in each side-torso and two in the Center-Torso?
For that matter, is it even legal to split any weapon other than those explicitly listed in the rulebooks?

[Ryokochan]

Skylarr, on 28 July 2012 - 12:36 PM, said:

Yes it does generate allot of heat when firing the Arty, but, this Mech would be placed Kilometers behind friendly lines. So why would it need TSMs.

It should have MGs or Flamers. A future variant should have Anti-Infantry Pods.

Just because artillery is deployed behind the lines doesen't mean it will stay there. Also a "Kill the Enemy's Artillery" match mode may be developed after launch. I could see one side defending the Arty and the other attacking.

CCC Dober, on 28 July 2012 - 12:48 PM, said:

@Ryo
It is perfectly legal to spread weapon crits as seen in Mechs such as the Clan Naga mounting dual Arrow IVs or the Catapult Variants C3 and C5. Just a few examples. Perfectly legal as you see.

I knew it was legal to split between two locations its three plus thats a grey area. If someone has a current rulebook it would clarify this.

[Lightdragon]

Bishop Steiner, on 28 July 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

Except the Fortress Class Dropship (the one w/ the long tom) is Rare, costs about oh, 150x this mech. Oh, and usually are pretty stationary once in atmosphere.

As for the long tom vehicle, again, since you seem to miss the repeated point... those are far too easily hunted down and destroyed, proven time and again in cannon, have very limited speed, and terrain crossing ability, and require a crew of 15 fully trained soldiers to operate. Whereas by using a mech chassis, I sastly increase ground speed, which allows it to be redployed rapidly, am in a sealed unit, meaning, unlike the long tom vehicle, I don't need to be deployed in a breathable atmosphere (particularly since while the crew may wear protective clothes, the ICE engine still has atmospheric requirements), and have zero terrain limitations, even able to be concealed under water for long periods of time. Add in the extra mobility to cross brken terrain and crevasses thanks to jump jets, and again, your argument fails spectacularly.

more crew, less expenses, besides with the size of a long tom its use is very limited in a mech after mounting the gun that weighs as much as a mech youll have room for maybe 5 shots at hte most in the chasis a sniper would be a far more effective arty piece on a mech

[Incunabulum]

This is why I like vehicles - you can build an artillery piece with the same movement specs and 2-3 times the armor at 60ish tons and 1/3 the C-bill cost. 'Course there's no vehicles here

It makes more sense to me to put the LT on a specialized vehicle (and provide an escort for the battery and resupply vehicles) than to mount it on a front-line assault 'mech chassis. The LT is an huge honking indirect-fire artillery piece that shouldn't be anywhere too close to the actual fighting - the real use for your 'mech would be fighting in oplaces where the majority of the terrain is unsuitable for vehicles.

CCC Dober, on 28 July 2012 - 12:48 PM, said:

@Ryo
It is perfectly legal to spread weapon crits as seen in Mechs such as the Clan Naga mounting dual Arrow IVs or the Catapult Variants C3 and C5. Just a few examples. Perfectly legal as you see.

i just ran up a version of this mech in HeavyMetal and if you dump the lower arm and hand actuators you can fit 20 rounds and the LT in the RA/RT locations. You can split large weapons into 2 locations that are adjacent to each other.

[Nebfer]

Well It is in fact Illegal to mount a long tom Artillery weapon on a battlemech (Tactical operations page 405 -see the critical slot lists, under the Long tom section it's not available for mechs).

Only combat & support vehicles, mobile structures, dropships and small craft can mount it (not to mention buildings as well as towed by Motorized and mechanized infantry).

As for the across three or more critical locations, I do not recall anything that deals with it, but Solaris Skunk Works (the most up to date mech program) prohibits items from being split across three or more locations.

Also for every one who says the range of the LT is 20 map sheets is flat out incorrect, Tactical ops gives it a range of 30 map sheets or ~15km, Tactical ops basically overrules any of the older rulebooks when it comes to the rules contained within, in this case the artillery rules.

If you do not have
Total Warfare
Tech Manual
Tactical Operations
Strategic Operations
A Time of War
Interstellar Operations (not out yet)
Then your rule books are out of date (though for the most part still useable if agreed to), and are superseded by these books.

[Rhyshaelkan]

This thread should really be in off-topic since it does not fit under MWO/General Discussions. There is nothing relevant to MWO.